Thursday, December 18, 2014

President Obama has re-established diplomatic relations with Cuba after extensive negotiations with them. Makes sense to me. During the Cold War, Cuba was an advance thrust of Soviet Communism into American sphere of influence, and they were quite dangerous, as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963 demonstrated. The USSR planted nuclear missiles on Cuban territory aimed at the U.S. Kennedy stared down Kruschev and had the missiles removed, and apparently Castro was furious, indeed his hatred of the U.S. was so extreme that he wanted to fire the missiles he had already in Cuba into the U.S. while he had the chance. Fortunately, Kruschev wasn't that stupid. But, with the collapse of the Soviet Empire, Cuba has become a harmless and pathetic impoverished speck next to the U.S. They are certainly no threat to the U.S. now that communism has died in the rest of the world. The notion that the best way to end a dictatorship is economic embargoes that only punish and weaken the populace has had a fifty plus year record of futility. Indeed, the only way dictator police states lose power is by a growing power of the people, and that includes economic prosperity and growth for the common folks. Economic sanctions can actually harm the power of the populace much more than it harms the tyrants in charge of the populace. Eventually, they see their interests being thwarted by despotism and overthrow, peacefully or violently, can occur. So, I say good for Obama. Church bells rang out in Havana as Obama and Raoul Castro made their simultaneous announcements of the return of diplomatic relationships. Also good for the Pope for his assistance in getting this done. Time to move on to the actual realities of today and stop fighting a Cold War that we won fifteen years ago.

Some of my conservative friends may say who cares? We are
dealing with depraved terrorists and we need to stop them and what we have to
do is not fit for viewing by women and children but it is something that men do
because they have to and thank goodness for hard men who can stomach doing such
things as it makes us all safer. Indeed, I was one of them immediately after 9/11/2001 - who were al Qaeda? where were they? did they have nukes? chemical weapons? Just find out, soon, now!

Some of my liberal friends, and some
conservatives too by the way, think that we have been lied to in both the
extent and the effectiveness of the “interrogation techniques’ and that indeed
we tortured and got not very much in the way of good intelligence.

John McCain said it very clearly by saying that our torture was not unknown to the Arab world, just
to the American people:

"...that doesn’t mean we will be telling the world something it
will be shocked to learn. The entire world already knows that we water-boarded
prisoners. It knows we subjected prisoners to various other types of degrading
treatment. It knows we used black sites, secret prisons. Those practices
haven’t been a secret for a decade.”

What is the result of torture?Doesn’t it just give the terrorists a great
recruiting tool? Doesn't it just produce more terrorists with more really good reasons to hate and kill, and torture?The torture was more understandable in the beginning because our intelligence agencies had failed so totally, they new nothing, they used everything to find out what they could. But... Time passed. And they ended up knowing more and more, and they didn't have to be desperate anymore. But torture had become Standard Operating Procedure. That's the trouble with the idea that the ends justify the means, the ends go away but the means become Standard Operating Procedure.

Actually, another
American who was quite experienced in the terrible arts of war had an opinion
on that matter, George Washington.

After
a battle, Washington’s troops were going to force German Hessian mercenaries fighting
on the side of the British through the brutal treatment of the gauntlet
(multiple beatings by the victorious soldiers).
He stopped them and told them this:

“Treat them with humanity,
and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of
the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen
into their hands,’ he wrote. In all respects the prisoners were to be treated
no worse than American soldiers; and in some respects, better. Through this
approach, Washington sought to shame his British adversaries, and to
demonstrate the moral superiority of the American cause.”

Apparently, his humanity toward his prisoners paid off as many
of the Hessians switched sides, fought against the British, and stayed in
America after it was all over.

If we torture our prisoners all we do is say America is no longer an exceptional nation, no longer are we a Shining Light on a Hill, we are just another nation in a long line of nations with no real moral, ethical, ideological, or exalted purpose or meaning. We are just like others, indeed, we are just like our enemies whom we are fighting under a pretense that our enemies are bad and we are better.

I will close with John McCain again, as I can’t say it any more
simply and powerfully:

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Another
suicide in football due to brain injury.
Kosta Karageorge of Ohio State committed suicide texting that “… these
concussions have got my head all fucked up.”
He joins an ever growing list of football suicides as a result of brain
injuries.

And yes, this is
the point where we mention that even the NFL admits that nearly three in 10 former players will
develop some form of debilitating brain injury in their lifetimes as a result
of playing football.”

That’s
worth repeating – the NFL itself admits that nearly 3 in 10 players will
develop some form of debilitating brain injury in their lifetimes as a result
of playing football.

So, why is it enjoyable to watch people inflict brain injuries on each
other? On the rare occasion when I glance at a TV with a game on I wonder which 30 percent of the players will end up with brain disease? Which will commit suicide?

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About Me

I am a boomer who has been both a left winger and a right winger and am seeking to add some soothing energy to the inflamed polarizations of today's rhetoric. However, in the age of extremist Republicanism I see the best way to soothe the waters is to oppose the inflammations from the Right, and the Left as needed.